Father John McGinn, Rector

Saint John’s Episcopal Church

Sandwich, Massachusetts

 

March 25, 2007                          Fifth Sunday of Lent

 

 

 

A major university experienced an amazing turn around in its football program a few years ago.  The next spring at the opening of spring training, the coach gathered his team together for a team meeting.  As the players took their seats, the coached announced that he was going to give out awards that the team had earned the previous season.  As he called forth each player, the team cheered.  Then one of the assistant coaches gave the coach the National Coach of the Year award that he had won for the team’s play.  He accepted it proudly, then as the applause subsided the coach walked over to a trash can marked with their outstanding season, and took a long look at his plaque, then threw it in the can.  In the silence that followed, each of the team stars dumped their awards on top of the coach’s.  The message was clear. What you did last year was terrific, but is not last year anymore.

 

I think that is really good advice.  The team had a great previous season, but they needed to focus on the year ahead.  In today’s lesson, Israel has experienced many bad years, and many of their leaders are in exile in Babylon.  It was not a happy time.  Then a prophet arises, named Isaiah, who brought a message of hope.  It had been a difficult time, but God is alive and at work in human history.  Don’t remember the former things or consider the ways of old.  I am about to do a new thing.  In other words don’t look back on your troubles, this is a new day.

 

Even more Isaiah has them look even farther back, to Exodus; God led the people out of Egypt.  He reminds them that the waters were rolled back to let them pass. And how the waters closed behind them on the Egyptian chariots to bring them deliverance from pharaoh.   And he assures them God will do it again.  That God will restore the Israelites to their home in Judea.  “Don’t despair.  Don’t remember the former thing and consider the ways of old.  I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forward, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and a river in the desert, the wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people. The people who I have formed myself so that they might sing my praises.”

 

The imagery in this passage is overwhelming.  God is going to build a superhighway in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, the wild animals will honor God.  And why will God do all of this?  One reason, that God has chosen Israel.  Israel was a chosen people.  And you may remember that familiar play Fiddler on the Roof.   Tevye, who is a pious Russian Jewish peasant, turns his eyes to the sky and argues with God.  One particularly dark point in his community, Tevye looks toward the sky and says to God, “If it is true that we are the chosen people, once in a while can’t you choose someone else?”

 

That is reminiscent of the book of Amos, chapter 3 verse2 God says to the people, “Out of all of the people, I have chosen you alone, and that is why I must punish you all the more for your sins.”  WOW is that what it means to be chosen, that you will be punished more by your sins?  There were surely many times in history when the Jewish people begged “Can’t you choose someone else?”  How about you?

Have you ever considered yourself chosen by God? 

 

Let’s consider our situation for a moment.  You and I may think that we choose to be Christians, but is that really so?  Most of us come from Christian families, and in a primarily Christian state in a primarily Christian nation, it was an accident of birth that brought us here.  We could have been born to a pagan tribe in New Guinea or in a Muslim family in Saudi Arabia, and would we still have found our way to Jesus?  It is doubtful.  In a sense we were chosen before we were born to be a Christian and we are free to ignore our upbringing and our culture but the one thing were dare not do is boast about our faith as if it was something we accomplished all on our own,  it is not.   There was an intermingling of the influences of others as well as our own will that is responsible for our faith.  We were chosen. 

 

Chosen for what?  God chose Israel for a purpose; to praise God.  That is Isaiah’s testimony.  Israel is to declare God’s praise.  In another place in Isaiah we read, “I the lord have called you to consciousness, I will take hold of your hand I will make you to be a covenant for the people and a life for the gentiles.”  Israel wasn’t chosen because God loved Israel more than the other peoples of the world.  Israel was chosen to declare God’s praise.  This is why you and I were chosen as well.  We are a very fortunate people.  If we interpret our good fortune to mean that God prefers us to others it would mean disastrous mistake and I get furious when I read articles or hear preachers state this.  If Go chose us it was for a reason.  It is because God wants us to declare gods praise to our friends, our neighbors, and coworkers and in school.

 

How do we declare God’s praise?  We do it by living a life of genuine Christian love.  By loving our family, our friends, where we work each day.  I want to tell you a remarkable story about Silas, a Christian pastor in West Africa.

 

Silas wanted to share witness of his faith with his neighbors who were Muslim.  When he tried preaching, the people ran Silas out of town, but he did not give up.  Instead he enrolled in a local Islamic school and by studying the Islamic faith he built relationships with the other students.  He took on all the chores no one else would do, the dirty tasks, and his church cut him off because they disagreed with what he was doing.  His wife wondered why he would stoop so low as to do the jobs the other students wouldn’t.  His service made the other students listen respectfully to his comments about his faith in Jesus.  Now Silas is a graduate of an Islamic school and that means that in his community he is free to speak in Muslim mosques.  He takes the opportunity to tell his neighbors about Jesus, neighbors who previously refused him now come to hear hiss stories because they respect his commitment to service.

 

How do you and I declare God’s praise?  We show the love of Christ through our ministry.  I think there is something more to be said.  Once God has placed his hand on us God does not let go.  That is the other side to being chosen, God does not give up on us.  I suppose it is possible, but you would have to fight really hard to get God to give up.

 

I came across this wonderful story about the early pioneer days around Chicago.  There lived a fine Quaker family named Hartman, whose son John had grown to manhood and one day he and his father had a serious quarrel.  It was so intense that the father ordered the son to leave home, and John said he would go and never return.  John decided to go west and look for work.  Only a few days had past when the father remorsefully realized the error he had made and went in search of his son.  He learned John had gone west toward California, and he traveled from camp to camp only to find his son had left the day before.  Finally with all his money spent, the father realized he had to return home, but he had one final idea.

 

“I will paint a message upon the rocks inviting John to come home,” he thought. Again and again and again with a prayer in his heart that his son would come along the path before the wind and the weather, he wrote upon the rocks.  The father then headed back to Chicago.

 

By providence, young John was making his way along the trail when suddenly he saw the words, John Hartman your father loves you, come home.  He bit his lip and went on stubbornly, but there it was again. John Hartman your father loves you, come home. The message got to him.  His father must have loved him a great deal to come out to the trail and write the message where everyone could see it.  “I am going home,” decided John.  And he did.

 

Jesus taught us that God is like that.  We ought never to forget it.  You and I are a chosen people.  We have been chosen to sing God’s praise by showing others the love of Jesus.  And finally we can rejoice, for no matter how far we have gone astray God does not easily give up on those God has chosen.  Amen

 

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